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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26158915">One Punch Summers</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Surefall/pseuds/Surefall'>Surefall</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Cable and Deadpool, Deadpool (Comics), Deadpool - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, M/M, rated for language</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 13:01:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,674</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26158915</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Surefall/pseuds/Surefall</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Nathan Summers is an omega level mutant.  Both his allies and his enemies often forget that.</p><p>The five times Cable won a fight with a single blow and the one time Deadpool did instead.</p><p>A series of unconnected one shots.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Nathan Summers &amp; Wade Wilson, Nathan Summers/Wade Wilson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>93</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Malice Aforethought</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Today is the first day of the rest of their lives.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>
    <span class="u">Zero Hour</span>
  </b>
</p><p>Nathan Summers jolted awake.  He blinked muzzily at the silver bulkhead and noted dawn's early light creeping into the room.  He rolled over, seeking Wade and finding only cooling sheets where his lover could usually be found.  </p><p>He frowned and sat up, rubbing his forehead against a phantom <i>ache</i>, and caught sight of Wade on the balcony.  Wade leaned against the rail, staring out to sea, singing about ... the end of the world?</p><p>Nathan climbed out of bed, glad for the pacific heat that kept the metal floors of Providence warm beneath his feet, "Come back to bed."</p><p>Wade's singing trailed off at the guitar riff, "And miss this?"</p><p>"Miss what?" Nathan muttered, sliding his arms around Wade and hooking his chin over his shoulder, pressing him against the rail.  Wade didn't turn, his entire focus far away from Nathan.</p><p>"The dawn of the first day of the end of the world," Wade said so seriously, so grim and solemn, that Nathan felt it like a shock of cold water.</p><p>"What?" Nathan straightened, chin brushing the top of Wade’s head as his gaze swept across the empty waves.  He expanded his awareness, casting his will across the waters in a sweeping pulse.  </p><p>"They're coming," Wade murmured, so far away from Nathan that his mind was a mirage, a heat shimmer in the distance.  Familiar with Wade knowing things he couldn't possibly know, Nathan simply accepted it as truth.  Something terrible was coming.</p><p>"Where?"</p><p>Wade pointed out to sea, arm like an arrow, unfailing charting the way, "There."</p><p>
  <b>
    <span class="u">One Hour</span>
  </b>
</p><p>No matter where on Providence they were, Wade stared at the same point in the sea, focused and intent, tracking something only he could see.  After dragging Wade across Providence and back, Nathan had enough line of sight to triangulate a location and send that location to Nick Fury.</p><p>
  <b>
    <span class="u">Three Hours</span>
  </b>
</p><p>Providence's escort helicarrier broke away as it received new orders.  Fury called Nathan personally to order him to move his island out of the way.  Nathan informed Fury that he was sending Wade with the helicarrier to scout and that he would retreat with Providence if retreat became necessary.  Fury told him it would be motherfucking necessary.  Nathan ignored him.</p><p>Nathan could feel it.  If telepathy was a wind around the earth connecting all telepaths and all non-telepaths together, then this ... presence ... did not belong.  It was alien.  For now, it simply felt like <i>purpose</i> ... but what purpose, Nathan couldn't tell.  </p><p>He wondered what Wade had seen that made him think that this was the beginning of the end.</p><p>
  <b>
    <span class="u">Four Hours</span>
  </b>
</p><p>Nathan felt the helicarrier abruptly gain altitude after each mind on it jolted in alarm.  It stayed there, high in the sky, tracking the otherness that grew the longer the alien remained.</p><p>Wade was a bird on the wing, thoughtless and sure and cast out of arrows, still pointing the way.</p><p>
  <b>
    <span class="u">Four and Half Hours</span>
  </b>
</p><p>Irene joined Nathan on top of the center spire, staring uneasily out to sea.  "What is it?" she whispered.</p><p>The dark smudge had cleared the horizon and grew quickly.  The behemoth was <i>massive</i>, easily as tall as a skyscraper and twice as long.  <i>Godzilla</i> was the first, sharpest thought that rang through every mind, but this didn’t look like the city killer of modern folklore.  Too craggy, too many joints in the limbs, and much, much <i>faster</i>.  It surged through the ocean depths as if born to the waves.</p><p>Wade's red glider looked like a gnat beside the behemoth as it swooped and dipped and soared past the massive body.</p><p>"Prepare for take off," Nathan told Irene as he centered himself in preparation for lifting Providence out of the ocean and out of the path of this ... thing.  </p><p>The mind currents roiled abruptly as the great head of the beast whipped to the side and snapped the glider out of the air with a single bite, crunching it to splinters.  Wade was too small a morsel to even taste, but satisfaction rolls like a wave across the earth, buffeting Nathan with the creature's malicious joy in feeling Wade <i>die</i>, broadcasting that death to every mind on earth.  </p><p>Irene gasped, whimpering as her mind was blasted by pure and unfiltered malignance, overwhelmed by despair, by a death she interprets as her own death.  She collapsed to the ground, barely breathing, rocked by the darkness that overtakes the thought currents of earth in a psychic attack that no one even thought was possible.</p><p>Nathan feels it in surround sound, in a thousand repetitious echoes.  He feels the pain, the crunch, the satisfaction of breaking his own lover into fragments with his own teeth and devouring him, Wade’s mind vanishing like smoke, a snuffed candle.  <i>Malice</i>, bright and clear, was a shockwave that drove <i>all</i> of humankind to their knees.</p><p>The reverberation of intent was a shout, a scream.  <b>DESPAIR!  BE CONSUMED!  DIE!</b></p><p>For Nathan, there was only <i>rage</i>, sudden and fierce and all consuming, as red washed across his vision.  He snarled in wordless, incoherent fury as he threw his arms wide and a deafening crack split the air, a thunder of sound and fury as the behemoth was torn brutally in half by Nathan's will alone.  The ocean rushed in to fill the gap in a torrent as Nathan tore and tore and tore, shredding the mountain of flesh and bone into mere boulders and casting them away.</p><p>The stench of death and salt and the chemical smell of blue alien blood fills the air.  Nathan burned with blue light, a blaze of power more suited to an avenging angel, an ancient bolt throwing god of myth.  Released from the paralyzing malice, Irene still doesn't dare to move or breathe in the face of such unrelenting fury.</p><p>Wade arrived in a vop of displaced air, dripping with gore and saliva and stinking to high heaven.  The ocean roiled, watery spikes cutting air and alien flesh alike as nature responded to Nathan's rage.  The metal beneath them shuddered and creaked, flexing in worrying ripples that nearly knock Wade off his newly unbroken legs.  The sky darkened as the air crackled, a furious storm stirring.</p><p>Wade lunged, flinging himself at Nathan, enduring the crackling electrical discharge as the power burning in the air around Nathan ground itself through Wade.  He hugged Nathan tight and shook him lightly, "Nate!  Nate!  It's dead!  You killed it!"</p><p>Nathan woke from the red rage with a gasp.  The waves stilled and the island rocked gently to a stop.  "It's dead," he said blankly, suddenly glad that Wade was hugging him as he sagged, exhaustion overwhelming without the fury to sustain him.</p><p>"I know, babe," Wade agreed, satisfied, "You killed it to pieces."</p><p>"Overkill," Nathan muttered, aghast at the ocean before him, which resembled glowing blue stew, chunky with alien meat and blood, rather than water.</p><p>"There’s no such thing," Wade says cheerfully, unspeakably content, his mind wrapping Nathan in soft silver feathers, alive and whole again, "Only just enough kill."</p><p>     </p>
<hr/><p>     </p><p>
  <i>And so began the War for Earth.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>With the war ship of Providence on the frontlines of the Pacific Rim.</i>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Optimus Prime voice over for the close. </p><p>This isn't even my only Pacific Rim AU.  :D</p><p>Who needs to finish a story before they post it?  I sure haven't!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Skyward Sword</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>No super hero party thrown by Tony Stark could ever pass peacefully.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first inkling that Nathan had that something had gone horribly wrong was Wade vaulting over the back of the couch and lunging across the room. Nathan turned away from Tony Stark just in time to hear Wade shout, "Nate! Bodyslide!"</p>
<p>Nathan swore as the hot burn of teleportation engulfed him, fusing him and Wade into one, stitching their cells together. For better or worse, the transporter simply couldn't tell them apart without the specifier of "by two". It put them back together the way the facade virus said they should be assembled: as a single unit. </p>
<p>As always, the surging flush of power and health briefly overwhelmed him, the press of millions of minds amplified. All their blaring thoughts were only drowned out by the bright red burn of foresight that lanced through him like a spear.</p>
<p>Twenty.</p>
<p>Wade's foresight was a gift and a curse, as powerful and subtle as his regeneration.</p>
<p>Nathan lifted his arms and summoned a shield just in time to meet the energy blast that slammed into the top of Stark Tower.</p>
<p>Nineteen.</p>
<p>He staggered as light burst around the tower, half of his attention taken with diffusing the energy beam harmlessly into the air around them, the other half in shielding them from the fire that poured down on them from above.</p>
<p>This was why he had needed the boost from Wade, to bear the load of this unprovoked attack on the unsuspecting Avengers.</p>
<p>Eighteen.</p>
<p>Which didn't mean that he was magically granted more time until their clock ran out and Wade's consciousness fragmented like so much shattered glass under the pressure of <i>oneness</i>.</p>
<p>This was a union that granted Nathan all of the benefits and Wade all of the burden. Power beyond any he could comprehend could be his and his alone ... if he only he sacrificed his friend's life to take it.</p>
<p>Seventeen.</p>
<p>"Where's it coming from?" Stark demanded from beside him. Nathan sensed the armor en route, the disturbance in the air teasing at the edge of his senses.</p>
<p>His attention was directed upwards, foresight's red claws hooking into his brain and pulling, flashing him along the column of light his will alone was holding back, racing towards the satellite that directed solar fire onto them, light channeled through lenses larger than the building they were in, focusing the sun itself to burn them from the earth ... like they were nothing more than ants beneath the magnifying glass of a child. </p>
<p>"Space," he said shortly, "a satellite of some kind."</p>
<p>Sixteen.</p>
<p>"What the hell? Who's controlling it?"</p>
<p>"I can't tell from here," Nathan said tightly, "there are no lives on board. It's probably remotely controlled."</p>
<p>Fifteen.</p>
<p>The tower was beginning to come apart around him, the stress of holding off the relentless assault seeping into the space around him as the buffer of his will lapsed. Wade sang in his veins, bolstering his flagging attention. </p>
<p>Fourteen.</p>
<p>"Shut it down," Rogers said abruptly from his other side, an authority that the half of Nathan that was Wade immediately rebelled against.</p>
<p>"We can't track who made it if we destroy it," Stark countered as the suit finally arrived and enveloped him.</p>
<p>Thirteen.</p>
<p>The tower above Nathan unfolded, steel girders and glass panels coming apart at the joints, spiraling open at his demand.</p>
<p>"If you could stop dismantling my tower, that would be great," Stark said mildly, boosting into the air to avoid the ground falling away beneath him.</p>
<p>Twelve.</p>
<p>Rogers dropped through open space, landing on a girder that lifted to meet him, glass window panes falling into place as stepping stones. Sensing that Nathan needed his concentration for more important things, he leapt out into space as Stark flew past, catching a ride with his friend.</p>
<p>Eleven.</p>
<p>"There's no time for subtlety," Nathan said simply, "I can't hold this forever." The radiant temperature of their immediate surroundings had been slowly but steadily rising as Nathan dispersed more and more energy. "I'll have to destroy it."</p>
<p>He lifted off, prepared to throw himself across the vault of the sky and shatter the satellite with a single blow.</p>
<p>Ten.</p>
<p><i>Too far.</i> It whispered across his thoughts, a calculation of distance made with a sniper's eyes and Nathan's wider senses. They were fast, but not that fast, to cross such a distance on will alone. <i>Return fire.</i></p>
<p>Nine.</p>
<p>Wade was so eye for an eye ... but that didn't make him wrong. Nathan twisted the atoms around him, pulling and shaping the very air, folding them into a mirror's edge.</p>
<p>Eight.</p>
<p>The fire that poured from the sky, a blow that took most of Nathan's will to bear, fell upon the glass made of air, and bounced back. </p>
<p>Seven.</p>
<p>The beam lanced back into the darkness, slicing upwards as Nathan adjusted his arc, a sword of fire piercing the heavens, that cut the satellite in two.</p>
<p>Six.</p>
<p>The fire abruptly cut out and Nathan sank under the sudden release of strain as he let go. The tower folded back together. Plate by plate, screw by screw as he dropped back inside.</p>
<p>Five.</p>
<p>On solid ground, Nathan bent over and braced his hands on his knees as he purged Wade in a violent expulsion of gore.</p>
<p>Wade reformed in a staggered series of solidifications, which Nathan helped along with gentle mental nudges, encouraging him to reassemble.</p>
<p>Wade rose to his feet, naked as the day he was born, and stretched, "So! How many pieces do you think you broke it into? I'm thinking six."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Canon already has Wade and Nate getting messily merged together by bodysliding.  This AU simply has the merger being a perfect, but time sensitive assimilation.  This is one possible unexplored consequence of the merger that occurs in <i>Archipelago</i>.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Indelible Bonds</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Nathan Summers and Wade Wilson of <a href="https://ifninomiko.tumblr.com/post/158135453881/the-things-you-think-about-yanno">Earth-1052</a> try to adopt Scott Summers by pretending to be man and wife.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Nathan Summers doesn't know why he expected better of this world.  He should know by now that fate always conspired against him when it came to taking Scott Summers from this orphanage.</p>
<p>He senses malice at the same moment that Wade whirls in a swirl of lace and perfume, back flipping in a needlessly showy draw of the katanas strapped to his thighs.  Wade lands lightly on the bed, bouncing Scott unmercifully as he kicked off, sword outstretched to thrust at the door.</p>
<p>Which swung open just in time for Wade to skewer the doctor that stepped through.</p>
<p>The doctor staggered back with the weight and momentum of Wade's thrust.  Wade twisted, the other arm swinging around to separate the doctor's head from his neck.</p>
<p>The doctor threw his arm up to block the blow, a vambrace forming where clothing used to be.  Wade's sword struck and bit deep.  The doctor's eyes widened in surprise and Wade smiled savagely across the gleaming metal of his blade as the pressure he applied forced it through the doctor's arm.  "Boo!"</p>
<p>Fear, brief and fleeting, flickered through the air, so abrupt and surprising that it slipped Sinister's mental control.  Wade's smile stretched into a shark's razor grin as he smelled the blood in the water.  </p>
<p>Sinister slammed Wade with a burst of energy, sending him right through the wall.  He grew taller and wider and darker as he threw off the doctor's facade like a discarded shell, "How - ?"</p>
<p>"Think about bathing once in a while, fatass," Wade sang from the other side of the wall, his battle joy visibly unnerving Sinister further, "because you <i>stink</i>." </p>
<p>Taking the opportunity now that Wade was clear, Nathan hurled Sinister through the roof with a thought.  He flung the roof and half the wall right after Sinister, clearing their immediate area of debris and opening the sight lines.  </p>
<p>"Let's go, Wade," he said flatly.  </p>
<p>"I was going to eat that," Wade said cheerfully as he skipped over in a cloud of petticoat lace and settling sheetrock dust, having climbed back through the wall that Sinister threw him into.</p>
<p>Nathan wrinkled his nose at the idea of <i>eating</i> Sinister to be rid of him.  Just because it had been effective <i>once</i> did not mean that he wanted Wade to get the idea that he should follow in the footsteps of his multiverse counterparts.  "It's bad for you."</p>
<p>"Nothing's bad for me," Wade grinned carelessly, "and it's the only way to make sure."</p>
<p>"Are you really going to kiss me with the mouth that has touched <i>Sinister</i>?" Nathan huffed.</p>
<p>"Excuse you, this mouth has touched way worse things than Sinister and that hasn't stopped you from accepting -- "</p>
<p>Nathan coughed pointedly.                                                                                                                                                        </p>
<p>" -- the sweet, sweet caress of my scarred lips on all your parts and that isn't really a better way of just saying 'blow jobs'.  Oh come on, Nate, he attends public school.  He's heard all this and <i>more</i>."</p>
<p>Nathan sighed.</p>
<p>"I have," Scott agreed tentatively, "kind of."</p>
<p>"See!  See!  His innocent ears have not been stained with my verbal debauchery and are we going to sit around here and talk all day or are we going to get a move on and murder that son of a bitch who was hurting this sweet Summers child."</p>
<p>Nathan's throw should have bought them some time, but Sinister was faster on the uptake than he had any right to be.  He crashed back into the room, tall and black and cruel, all pretenses discarded, "The boy is mine."</p>
<p>All at once, Nathan's patience came to an end.  Fifteen iterations of this scenario playing out in fifteen slightly different ways had evaporated his willingness to allow this bottom feeder to live.  Any moment now, Xavier would make a mental appearance and interfere, drawn by the psychic battle that would play out between him and Sinister.  There was no escaping this altercation in secrecy, no way to whisk Scott away and bring him quietly to the same family that already housed his little brother without leading the hounds right to their door.</p>
<p>Wade flicked a glance at him, finely attuned to his changing moods, even as he stepped between Sinister and Scott, shielding the boy from Sinister's eyes, "And you'll taste better with ketchup."  He spun his swords over his wrists and snapped his teeth.</p>
<p>As if Nathan would ever resort to letting Wade eat their enemies.</p>
<p>Nathan grabs Sinister with a thought and sends them upwards.  Sinister twists in his telekinetic hold, as slippery as eel, changing his molecular structure in an effort to slide through Nathan's grasp.  It might be an effective strategy against an opponent less skilled in telekinesis, or against someone who's never had to hold Wade when he doesn't want to be held … but Nathan only tightens his grip.  </p>
<p>They shoot upwards, so fast that the wake of their passing leaves contrails through the chilling air.  </p>
<p>The air grows thin and cold.  Frost gathers and slides away on the telekinetic shield that stands between Nathan and the elements, holding in the oxygen that Nathan still needs to breathe at these altitudes.  He doesn't care if Sinister freezes or suffocates and he can feel Sinister's growing alarm, his renewed struggle, as they leave the ground farther and farther behind.</p>
<p>The air ignites around Nathan as he puts on speed, accelerating past exit velocity, counting down his remaining air time in the back of his head.  The pull of gravity reaches for him, trying to pull him down from the black, a mother calling a child back to her warm embrace.  Behind him is life, countless thoughts in an endless stream, the warm welcoming blanket of six billion lives … and before him is the black void, the silence of space and the static scream of starlight.  Nathan ignores the pull, the automatic desire to be folded back among the many, a telepathic's weakness and strength in being <i>connected</i>.</p>
<p>Then they're free, suddenly adrift in vacuum, hurtling away from Earth and en route to the sun.  Nathan flings Sinister away from him, not surprised to see him alive and wriggling, though his struggles slow in the cold, airless vacuum of space.  </p>
<p>He focuses his will, his hold on Sinister sinking deep into his flesh, into his very cells, into the atoms that make up his cells.  There, touching every single atom, every infinitesimal part of him, he tears Sinister apart, ripping him asunder as he forces the bonds of every atom to <i>break</i>.  </p>
<p>The blast from all those broken bonds releasing their energy all at once is a nuclear explosion, a firestorm that lights up the horizon like a solar flare.</p>
<p>Satisfaction swells through his psylink with Wade as Nathan bursts untouched out of the inferno, using the shockwave to propel his atmospheric re-entry. </p>
<p>Sinister would never hurt Nathan's family again … and what did it matter if that meant that Nathan would never be born in this universe?</p>
<p>
  <i>It matters to me, you over dramatic emo motherfucker!</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>We can ask Scott to hook other you up with Logan.</i>
</p>
<p><i>This outrageous insult shall not stand!  Hook me up with Stark.  Have you seen his missiles?  That's the kind of power a man wants to feel between his legs.</i>  </p>
<p>Nathan laughed all the way out of orbit.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Nathan basically enacted nuclear fission on Sinister.  </p>
<p>Our theme song for this particular debacle is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJK-F1CuWVU">Magical Labyrinth by SKIRT</a>.</p>
<p>The dark secret of Earth-1052 is that Nate is the one who destroyed the dimension, with his ends justify the means I know better than you nonsense.  Wade is the only survivor, either because he happened to be literally with Nate when the trigger was pulled or because he <i>could not be destroyed</i> … which is the actual answer remains unclear.  Either way, he's the living reminder that Nate Done Fucked Up and He Should Be Sorry.</p>
<p>One of the earliest stories I entertained writing was a Deadpool/Iron Man tale where Deadpool collects Stark missiles.  He wants them new and in the box!!  Mint condition!!  With the stamps!  Carefully arranged in his lair to show off the rarest and most valuable!  If only he could get them signed!  Wade has met this Deadpool during their dimensional travels and loves him and his gold digging plans to get his missiles signed.  Truly a man with taste!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. AXIS Powers</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>After failing to defeat Red Onslaught with the Avengers and the X-Men, Magneto goes to find help.  He finds it.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Taking place in V3 <i>Deadpool</i> #36 and <i>Avengers &amp; X-Men: Axis</i> #3.  </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Cable and Deadpool have gone off canon in <i>Cable and Deadpool</i> #6 with <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/8015134/chapters/18348514">Archipelago</a> and <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/series/712878">In Winter Fell the Rain</a>.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Finding Deadpool took longer than Magneto expected.  He was not in New York, but in some little town in nowhere Texas.  The location given to Magneto was an old idyllic property so large and wooded that the neighbors had to be reached by truck.  Either this was a hit on an oil tycoon or the assassin had unexpected tastes in bolt holes.</p>
<p>Magneto landed on the porch and casually tore the locked backdoor out of its frame to step inside.  Across the long stretch of the inside room, there was a moment where he and the people in the living room simply looked at each other in mutual surprise before they exploded into action.</p>
<p>Deadpool vaulted over the back of the couch, flinging whatever immediately came to hand at Magneto's head.  The two kids bolted upstairs.  Magneto had no time to concern himself with the children as he deflected the first projectile -- a remote -- while Deadpool closed the distance between them in a charge.</p>
<p>The drawers rattled and remained closed as Magneto summoned the knives.  He yanked on the plumbing and <i>it didn't move</i>.  Magneto could feel the metal all around the house.  In the walls, in clusters of armaments, in silverware and electronics and the cars outside … and none of it would <i>move</i>.  Even the metal on his suit refused to move.</p>
<p>Alarmed at the sudden reality of having to <i>grapple</i> with Deadpool, an unkillable super soldier, without a weapon, Magneto flung out a hand and summoned the strongest magnetic pulse he was capable of and let it rip through Deadpool's heart.</p>
<p>Magneto did not often get to watch the light die in someone's eyes but he watched it now as pale eyes dimmed to true dead white and Deadpool staggered, a puppet with its strings.  Deadpool landed heavily on one leg, pitching forward into a collapsing fall, and then he jerked back into motion, the fall turned into a lunge.</p>
<p>Magneto relaxed too soon, caught in a slowed reaction time as he tried to sway out of the range of Deadpool's fist.  The reaching fist unfurled, caught the edge of his helmet, and ripped it off his head.</p>
<p>His whole body froze, caught in someone else's grip, as his mind was invaded, <i>Care to explain why you <b>murdered</b> my husband?</i></p>
<p>Deadpool spun the helmet, balancing it on a fingertip, and smirked at him.   He looked none the worse for wear for having his heart stopped.</p>
<p>
  <i>Wrong answer.</i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>They materialized high above the island and into freefall before Nathan caught them.  The entire field below them was broken buildings and burning infrastructure that sent obscuring smoke and ash into the air.  The two sentinels and Red Onslaught remained, towering behemoths that dug for the remaining heroes in the rubble.</p>
<p>Nathan dropped Wade lightly onto the top of a building, letting him slip away into the shadows.  He bent the light around himself into a bright blue glow, the polite indication of telekinesis, and descended to hover before their adversaries as a firefly to draw their eyes.</p>
<p>He thinned his outer shields and let himself be heard by anything with capacity to do so.  Red Onslaught immediately swung around to focus on him, targeting on the feel of his mind suddenly coming into view.</p>
<p>For a long moment, the behemoth simply stared, the fumbling power of his mind grabbing at Nathan's and squeezing.  Nathan casually slapped the grip away.  "Cable," Red Onslaught greeted with a snarl.</p>
<p>Red Onslaught might have Xavier's power, but that was all he had.  Not that Xavier had much more than power.  Xavier had some small skill developed clumsily through combat with other untrained telepaths who were simply not his equal in pure force.  Nathan was the product of two thousand years of war training in the mind arts.  "Red Skull," Nathan acknowledged in return.</p>
<p>"You are no match for me," Red Onslaught stated, his natural arrogance bleeding through as the sentinels turned their heads toward Nathan on cue.  Even without Magneto's information about what the sentinels had done to everyone they set their sights on, Nathan could have read it directly from Red Onslaught's mind as it bled through his insufficient shielding.</p>
<p>Nathan raised his arms and the air around him warped, atoms realigned to reflect the beams that burst from the sentinel’s eyes.  The light bounced and dispersed harmlessly.  "You'll find that I'm more than a match for all of you."</p>
<p>"You -- " Red Onslaught surged forward, striking out with a swinging slap, the way one might strike a fly.  Nathan shot skyward and out of the path of the blow.  Tentacles whipped out, reaching, and Nathan slipped between them, dodging around the suckered mountains that threatened to crush him.  " -- are nothing more than a <i>gnat</i>!  An insect that dares to challenge a god!"</p>
<p>"A god?  You're a <i>monster</i> and all you've done is make that more obvious than it was before."  Nathan said simply, his senses languidly expanding to cover the whole of the island.  He felt more than a few heroes hidden away waiting for an opportunity.  Wade was a ghost, invisible to him except for when he passed into Quentin's view and Nathan could pluck the information from Quentin's jolt of surprise.  </p>
<p>His will seeped into the sentinels, sank into the seams and rivets, into cracks and joints, until currents sang through his mind with the impact they made on the molecules around them.  Grasping electricity was like finding Wade, sensing it by the reflections it made on the world, through heat and electron charges.  </p>
<p>Red Onslaught's booming laugh reverberated across the island, "I am -- "</p>
<p>Nathan's will <i>flexed</i> and the sentinels came apart at the seams, thousands of parts spiraling open.  Screws unscrewed, rivets popped, welds broke, hooks unhooked, and the sentinels fell to messy pieces, collapsing to the ground in a heap of parts.  </p>
<p>Red Onslaught's laughter froze in his throat in shock as he stared at Nathan, suddenly only himself against an adversary that broke his tools with only a thought.  Among the remains of his sentinels, heroes climbed out of the opened containment units, functionally unharmed.</p>
<p>"Outmatched," Nathan helpfully completed the sentence for him.</p>
<p>Red Onslaught's jaw dropped open and pure energy shot out, a river of flame seeking Nathan.  It was no more effective than any other strike as Nathan climbed for the sun, gaining altitude with a bullet's speed.  </p>
<p>There was already a hole in Red Onslaught's head where someone had punched through his eye and come out the other side.  If he tore Red Onslaught asunder, would he reform?  Nathan could feel the magic on Red Onslaught, the crackle of power beyond his ken, that gave the monster shape and fuel.  Only magic countered magic and Nathan was no mage.  </p>
<p>… but the sun on his back was a reminder.  Heat and light and a virus that Nathan had infected everyone on earth with.  A virus that had marked everyone and all their descendants.  A decision he had made which had consequences he could now <i>use</i>.</p>
<p>"Mere machines," Red Onslaught said finally, snapping his jaw shut on the remnants of flames, "Am I not generous to merely imprison your allies rather than grinding them to bloody paste?  You only test my goodwill by crushing my Sentinels.  If you wish to be destroyed, I will <i>destroy</i> you!"</p>
<p>Nathan reached out, sinking deep into the flames of the lives around him, tracing his will across the marker that they all shared in their blood and bones and flesh, in their very cells.  He familiarized himself with what that marker should look and feel like.  In Red Onslaught it was warped, twisted and elongated by the magic that made him into this monster … but it remained.  Nathan called to the warped shape, a gentle song to reshape itself.  The marks shuddered, a million bees vibrating their wings at once.</p>
<p>Nathan song raised into a demand, a command to conform back to <i>perfection</i>, a reminder of what <i>oneness</i> should feel like.  Two hearts beating as one, two wills bent to the same goal, two spirits entwined, every cell marked and perfectly matched.  Nathan's will sang and the bees roared to life in a rush.</p>
<p>Red Onslaught screamed as his body shuddered and twisted, his flesh melting and sloughing away into ash as the facade virus <i>ate him</i>.  He shrank and shrank until he was just the Red Skull once more, staggering from the remnants of what magic had made of him, his marks the same shape as all the others on earth.</p>
<p>Nathan dropped, touching down on the ground, still singing to the virus in a gentle caress, willing it to hibernate once more.  All around him he could feel the stirring of sleeping wings, roused from their slumber by his demands, by this note in their song that was alive and awake.</p>
<p>Wade's blade sliced through Red Skull's neck in a single swing, sending his head rolling across the ashy earth as his body slumped to the ground.  </p>
<p>"That wasn't necessary," Nathan said mildly.</p>
<p>"What?  Magneto doesn't just roll up to my crib and smash the door down because he wants me to gently escort some asshole to the authorities," Wade shot back, flicking his blade clean of blood and sheathing it in a single motion, "Look at this mess!  Look at these damn sentinels!  What were we gonna do?  Sedate him for the rest of his life?  Collar him?  Dig Xavier's brain out of his fucking head and slap him on the wrist for being a meanie pie?"</p>
<p>The virus subsided into silence as the single discordant note was ended, the beat of a thousand wings fading into soft rustlings and then total quiet, sleeping once again.  Nathan suspected that Wade could <i>feel</i> them somehow and they bothered him, a reminder of unpleasant memories.</p>
<p>Nathan might has aimed for capture, but he didn't care if Red Skull died.  He dropped a hand on Wade's shoulder and squeezed it tightly, "I know," he said simply.</p>
<p>Wade glared narrowly at him for a long second as if doubting his easy acceptance of the kill before the tightness in his shoulders relaxed and he leaned toward Nathan, arms folding over his chest, "Exactly!  That's what I'm talking about."</p>
<p>"Nathan!" Cyclops approached them, worse for wear but whole, "Wade," he acknowledged with barely a blink, "Thanks the for the assist, but how did you get here?"</p>
<p>"Magneto," Nathan made a face, "and we need to get home.  We left him and the kids with the neighbors, but it's not fair to make them endure him for long."</p>
<p>"I bet Mrs. Vasquez decided he needed Jesus," Wade reported cheerfully, spirits lifting at the thought of Magneto politely enduring evangelizing while the kids sat at the table eating Mrs. Vasquez's cookies and nodding along like bobble heads.  </p>
<p>Nathan smirked, "So do you."</p>
<p>Wade cackled, "She'll never trap me!  I've used Escape and it was super effective!"</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The Pokémon references are obvious.  :D</p>
<p>Supposedly EMPs don't interfere with the bioelectrical signals in humans, but this is comic book science, so they can now!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. With a Single Snap</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Trapped in darkness, the Uncanny Avengers are just looking for some light.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Takes place during <i>Uncanny Avengers</i> #25 and obliquely references <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/10620393/chapters/34868588">Prompt Response: Love Letters</a>.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Purify the body, release the flesh ... " Brother Voodoo spoke with Synapse's mouth as he drew deeply on the well of their personal power, cut off from the greater power of New York by the dark dome that trapped the Uncanny Avengers. </p>
<p>"You magic will not save you, Sorcerer. " Whatever else the Darkforce creature possessing Brother Voodoo was going to say was drowned out by an overwhelming thunderclap of sound.  </p>
<p>The air reverberated, dust shaking loose from buildings as their very bones seemed to vibrate.  It was like standing inside a bell when it was rung.  Wasp didn't so much land on Brother Synapse's shoulder as fall out of the sky.  Brother Synapse grabbed her before she fell and tossed her back into the air where she immediately grew to full size.</p>
<p>"What was that?!"</p>
<p>Darkforce seemed to be just as much in the dark as they were, looking to the sky in puzzlement to match their own.  Human Torch glanced up reflexively while Brother Voodoo took the opportunity to shoot another magical bolt at his body, trying to drive the darkforce creature out.  Darkforce deflected it with barely a thought, rising swiftly into the air to gain altitude.  Human Torch shot after him to keep him from maintaining the high ground.</p>
<p>A screeching sound lit up the dark.  Human Torch jinked out of habit.  Above their heads a glowing line carved its way across the light sucking dome of their prison.  It burned there, taunting them with a brightness they were no longer used to seeing.  </p>
<p>The screeching sound resumed with not much pause as another line carved a path perpendicular to the first, inscribing a glowing '+' in the sky.</p>
<p>"How can this -- " Darkforce was promptly interrupted as the thunderclap resounded again, deafening them all.  Human Torch covered his ears and saw the dark dome crack, punched open at the glowing cross.  Fragments fell to earth like glass, evaporating into dark smoke before they touched the ground.  </p>
<p>A gleam stooped from the sky, hidden among the smoky shards until it flashed past them and slammed into Darkforce.  The dark entity screamed and tumbled from the air, pierced through by gleaming blades, as Deadpool rode him right down to the ground.  Their absent team member only leapt free at impact, skidding across the ground to bleed momentum, burning swords wheeling in an arc as they shed smoke and luminous blood.</p>
<p>The swords glowed with their own light, runes carved along the entire steel edge burning brightly.  To mage sight, they were blades of pure flame, swords of spirit rather than steel.  Deadpool spun the flaming swords lightly over his wrists.</p>
<p>"Relics?" Brother Synapse breathed out in shock as he watched power flow up from the earth, through Deadpool, and into the swords.  A clear and smooth conduit facilitated by the symbols woven red onto red and black onto black into Deadpool's suit, that blazed bright in his mage sight.  </p>
<p>"You know what they say:  don't bring a knife to a gunfight," Deadpool laughed cheerfully, "and always bring magic to a magic fight!"  </p>
<p>"But where did you even <i>get</i> -- "</p>
<p>"C'mon, bro, haven't you met my wife?" Deadpool shrugged as he lunged back into the fray, swords blazing as they swung at Darkforce.  </p>
<p>Brother Synapse immediately jumped back in with him, firing bolt after bolt, "Have a care for my body, if you please!"</p>
<p>"I thought you looked shorter and more crowded," Deadpool didn't notice their mutual surprise that their loud companion knew they were both sharing Synapse's body.</p>
<p>The sky lit up as two figures dropped into the dark space from the blue sky beyond.  One of them immediately leapt into the darkness, zigzagging around like a lightning bolt, flashing around the space to give light to the battle that was playing out beneath them. </p>
<p>The other dropped gracefully into a hover, watching with solemn amusement.</p>
<p>Human Torch shot into the sky to greet him with relief, "Cable!"</p>
<p>"How have you been holding up?"</p>
<p>Human Torch shrugged, "Brother Voodoo's got an out of body experience problem and we're neck deep in monsters."  </p>
<p>Wasp joined them in a blur of wings.  "Better now that you and Deadpool are here. Who's the other guy?"</p>
<p>"We had to resupply," Cable said by way of explanation for their lateness, "That's Lightmaster.  We broke him out of jail."</p>
<p>"I'm guessing his power is light?" Wasp asked cheerfully, feeling better than she had for days, buoyed by the arrival of the cavalry and the beautiful blue sky she could see through the hole in the dome.</p>
<p>"You guess right," Cable said with a smile.  He floated lazily in the air, his hands in his pockets, strangely at ease as he watched the fight going on below them.  </p>
<p>A distant crunching boom heralded Rogue bursting out of the ground in a shower of broken masonry, trailing darkforce creatures.  Human Torch's fire blazed brighter as he immediately flew away to help her.</p>
<p>Brother Synapse and Deadpool caught Darkforce between them, batting him around like a mouse even if they didn't seem to be doing much damage.  From above, it looked like an ethereal dance of light and shadow.  Every slash of Deadpool's blades seemed to hang in the air, suffusing the space they passed through with light.  Brother Synapse's bolts burned with after image long after they should have been spent.</p>
<p>The very air glows after Lightmaster moves through it, leaving a wake of twinkling particles.  The sky around Human Torch is bright and golden, flame marking the sky long after he passed by.  Slowly, but surely, the light built, a slow swelling glow as dot by dot, twinkle by twinkle, the darkness is pushed back.</p>
<p>Cable glowed, a slowly expanding supernova of gold and blue light.  His golden eye burned like the sun, spitting fire.</p>
<p>Below, Darkforce had enough as he swept his foes aside with a wave of darkness, "Enough! You will never defeat me with your toothpicks and flashlights!"</p>
<p>"Who us?" Deadpool said innocently, jerking a thumb back at himself, "Look, black face loser mc darky dark."  Brother Synapse's cough sounded suspiciously like a laugh. "We're not defeating you ... we're <i>distracting</i> you.  Get with the program already.  Have you been smoking soot for so long that you've gone blind?  You'd think your other senses would improve or something, yeesh. Fall into some chemicals while crossing the road!  I have it on good authority that it'll fix all your sense having woes."</p>
<p>Darkforce whips around with a snarl, looking for his actual opponent.  </p>
<p>"That's who's gonna defeat you," Deadpool crooned, throwing an arm over his shoulder and pointing with a sword at Cable floating high above them, glowing like the sun itself. </p>
<p>Darkforce threw Deadpool aside and surged into the air with a cry of rage. </p>
<p>Deadpool accepted Brother Synapse's hand up, "You heard the man.  Get ready to jump back into your own body."  </p>
<p>"Lightmaster, lend me your power," Cable said kindly as Darkforce closed the distance between them.</p>
<p>"You have it! " Lightmaster laughed as he rolled through the sky, painting it in radiant light. </p>
<p>Cable leisurely pulled a hand from his pocket and lifted it in the air ... and snapped his fingers.</p>
<p>Flame leapt from that contact point and burst outward as the whole world lit on <i>fire</i>.</p>
<p>Darkforce screamed as he was pierced by light as an inferno filled the dome in white flames, sparked from Cable's single snap and every tiny speck of light that had been carefully gathered to fuel it.  A single supernova's pulse of blinding light, enough to pierce any shadow and light any darkness.</p>
<p>The black dome buckled and then burst and then was entirely consumed as supernatural fire leapt for the sky.</p>
<p>As swiftly as the flames consumed everything, they snuffed themselves out, leaving ash and smoke to drift in the air.</p>
<p>Wasp screamed in shock and relief to find herself still alive and entirely unharmed, shielded completely from the inferno by Cable's will and perfect control.</p>
<p>Lightmaster cartwheeled through the air and saluted Cable as he zipped by, "We're square now."</p>
<p>Cable nodded benevolently as the light entity departed.</p>
<p>Deadpool hopped up and down on the ground, waving his swords around with unholy glee as he tried to get Cable's attention, "Do it again!  Do it again!"</p>
<p>Cable grinned at him, smug and preening, "That wasn't enough of a light show for you?"</p>
<p>"This isn't the Cable and Deadpool show," Rogue huffed, shaking the immolated remains of darkforce creatures from her hood as she joined Cable and Wasp in the air.</p>
<p>"Cable, who's Cable?" Deadpool asked innocently, smirking so widely his mask was twisting, "That was the <i>Flame Alchemist</i>."</p>
<p>"I'm not watching any more television with you ever," Cable said repressively as he drifted lightly to the ground within arm's reach of Deadpool.  Rogue and Wasp touched down with him</p>
<p>"Oh please, you watched the whole show with me and complained the entire time," Deadpool sheathed his swords and punched Cable companionably in his metal shoulder.</p>
<p>"I think you forget who does all the complaining around here," Cable said dryly.</p>
<p>"I'm a parag -- "</p>
<p>"Feeling better?" Cable casually interrupted Deadpool's pending tirade as Brother Voodoo joined them, now in the correct body.</p>
<p>"None the worse for wear," Brother Voodoo smiled at them, clasping Synapse shoulder gratefully, "Thank you, my friends."</p>
<p>Synapse grinned up at him, "You'd do it for me too."</p>
<p>"I would," Brother Voodoo agreed.</p>
<p>"Now what?" Human Torch asked, "We pick up Quicksilver and go kick some sense into Cap's ass?"</p>
<p>"There's still another dome up there," Deadpool cut in with an unashamedly wheedling voice, "and it needs a breaking."  He turned toward Cable and clasped his hands beneath his chin, "Do it again!"</p>
<p>Cable tilted his head back, squinting at the dome that surrounded the earth, "That dome?"</p>
<p>"That one, that one!"</p>
<p>Cable shrugged, a rolling motion of his shoulders as he smirked at Deadpool, holding eye to mask contact as he lazily lifted his hand and snapped his fingers.</p>
<p>The dome tore apart with a rending crack, dissipating into nothingness.  </p>
<p>Deadpool cheered, "Hell yeah!  That's what I’m talking about!"</p>
<p>"HOW WAS THAT EASIER THAN THE FIRST ONE?!" Rogue screamed, punching Cable in the shoulder and bouncing off his shield.</p>
<p>"That was tech.  The other one was magic."</p>
<p>"Magic is tricky," Deadpool agreed sagely.</p>
<p>"If you could do that," Rogue stared at the sky, aghast, "why haven't you just ... done everything without us?"</p>
<p>"Power like mine usually makes people nervous."</p>
<p>"Is that what I'm feeling now?" Deadpool asked thoughtfully, head tilted downwards, eyeholes directed at Cable's ass, "I thought it was lust."</p>
<p>"Aren't you married?" Brother Voodoo asked.</p>
<p>"Sure am.  Meet Cable, my fine ass first wife."</p>
<p>Cable smirked.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The Flame Alchemist is from <i>Full Metal Alchemist</i> and he utilizes his flame alchemy by snapping his fingers. </p>
<p>Lightmaster has "worked" with Cable before in <i>Cable and Deadpool</i> and is responsible for transmuting the façade virus into everyone on Earth.</p>
<p>This arc in the comics was so boring that I cancelled by subscription to <i>Uncanny Avengers</i> over it.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Even Stars Burn Out</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Nathan can't get any rest, even in a coma, without everything going to hell in a handbasket.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Takes place in <i>Avengers vs. X-Men</i> Round 11.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Infinite futures.  Infinite outcomes.</p><p>In this one the Avengers <i>won</i>.</p><p>So they chose it.</p><p>... but the future always in motion is.</p><p>   </p><p>"ENOUGH!" The Phoenix flames around Cyclops, spreading wings of flame, powered by his <i>betrayal</i>.  </p><p>A wingbeat and the flames burst free to surge upwards, a bird climbing for clear blue sky.  Power pours from Cyclops in a rush as the Phoenix leaves him, dropping him to his knees at their sudden inexplicable loss.  He was only himself again, no longer the conduit for a half of all-consuming power.</p><p>The assembled forces pause in pure surprise as the bird of fire climbs for the heavens and then dives, stooping on a figure that arrives on the battleground in a vop of displaced air.</p><p>"Am I late for the parTY -- SHIT!" Deadpool yelps as he's consumed by <i>fire</i>.</p><p>The vortex of flame that obscures him vanishes with a breath of indrawn air as it settles itself in its new host.</p><p>Deadpool pats himself in surprise that he isn't burning, "Oh, hey, I'm <i>not</i> on fire.  That's craz -- oh.  Where's the rest of you?  Well, c'mon then."  </p><p>He spreads his arms to the sky, fire calling to fire.  Flame answers him as Emma Frost is abruptly purged and a second firebird surges across the gap to unite in a better vessel. </p><p>The assembled forces were willing to see Xavier dead and murdered to regain control of this power.  Deadpool is nothing to them.  </p><p>The combined firepower of the Avengers and the X-Men sloughs off the shield of wind and flame that springs up between them and Deadpool in an instant.  The shield explodes outward, throwing them off their feet.  The mountains shudder, snowcaps melting away as the stone heats.  Beneath them, the earth shakes ominously.</p><p>This was the difference between a vessel <i>meant</i> to hold power and an inferior container.  Fire burns through the sky to envelope Deadpool as the Phoenix was made whole once more.</p><p>Wade takes a deep breath, feeling fire in his lungs, in his spirit.  Green replaces the red in his suit and his eyes burn gold.  An eldritch glow lights him up from inside, casting the shadows of his bones across his suit.  </p><p>His senses expand and the world leaps ahead, blurring through white framed panels, casting the present into distant static.  The very universe <i>sings</i>.   Light and fire wash endlessly across the earth, sluicing away his thoughts in the song of starlight that seeks to fill the silence of the void.  </p><p>Wade was fire.  He was once a spark, but now he was an inferno contained in skin and bone.  The sun burning in the black and the fire in his soul sang in the same cacophonous voice, bright and blazing and all-devouring.  Fire, like Wade, was always hungry. </p><p>Wade's smile lights him up from within as he <i>puts out the sun</i> like he might put out a candle.</p><p>The song goes silent as Sol dies, the source of all life snuffed in an instant with a mere exercise of will.  It will take eight long minutes for the world to realize that they are just dead men walking, that all their tiny sparks will fade without this greater blaze to sustain them.  </p><p>All their tiny sparks ... and the spirit within him burns against them.  He was the cycle of death and rebirth, of destruction and creation, the handle that turns the wheel.  He was the light that lit the darkness for all mankind and the flame that burned them all to ash.  He was <i>fire</i>, fickle and cruel and hungry, a primal force of nature as careless and inexorable as the tide.  What was there to fear?  What was there to fight against?  This was nature.  This was change.  This was the cycle of the universe.  </p><p>Others desired the power to remake the world, only to turn away from the price that all such power demands.  Wade, though, was used to <i>prices</i>, used to paying them and making sure they were <i>paid</i>.</p><p>"Omae wa mou shindeiru."</p><p>   </p>
<hr/><p>   </p><p>[You are already dead.]</p><p>Hope staggers and doesn't know why.  Logan catches her before she falls, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end at the smile stretching Deadpool's mask out of shape, causing the flickering shadow of his skull to gleam dark and sharp through the thin container of suit and skin.</p><p>Logan might not understand the reference, but he knows the language, and he knows it means nothing good.  </p><p>Deadpool spreads his arms and his voice was the echo of starlight, burning in the heavens, "If you would have <i>creation</i>," Flowers bloom all around him, oleander and begonias and flush green grass. "Then you must also have <i>destruction</i>."  The flowers crumble, bursting into flame as fire spirals out from Deadpool in curling waves, leaving only ash and smoke behind.  </p><p>"Deadpool," Logan abruptly corrected himself, "Wade!  Let it <i>go</i>."</p><p>"You have created much with my power.  You have fought your enemies to a standstill," Deadpool speaks, but he's just the voice of the furious spirit within, "and now the wheel turns and you must give back an equal weight to what you have <i>taken</i>.  What will you <i>destroy</i> to make room for your <i>creation</i>?"</p><p>"Wade!"</p><p>"He's not listening," Hope says grimly beside him.  She was supposed to take the power once they had purged it from Scott and Emma.  It had called to her, burned in her, and now it was silent.  She reached for it and Deadpool slipped through her mental fingers like smoke.  There was nothing in Deadpool to hold on to, no spark that let her grasp onto his power and take it for herself.  </p><p>"Adults don't let children fight their wars for them," fire dripped from Deadpool's suit as his head turned in her direction, "hatchling."</p><p>"I'm not a child!" Hope shot back, "I had it before you stole it!"</p><p>"An impure vessel will serve.  It can burn until it has been made pure," Deadpool spread his hands, turning them this way and that as if admiring them, flame crawling over his gauntlets in a burning caress, "This vessel ... this avatar ... is already pure.  Clear and strong and <i>infinite</i>."</p><p>"It's mine!"  Hope pounded her own chest with a first, "It's my <i>destiny</i>!"</p><p>Deadpool threw his head back and laughed and their ears bled as the raptor cry of it tore the air asunder. </p><p>"Hope," Logan said calmly beside her, laying a hand on her arm, "Maybe you shouldn't tell cosmic power that they belong to you."</p><p>Hope jerked her arm away with a furious glare.</p><p>"Your destiny?  Your destiny was to kill millions of people." Deadpool smiled a rictus, burning smile and Logan froze in the gaze of those knowing, golden eyes, "How quickly we forget how many children we were willing to kill to prevent such futures from coming to pass."  </p><p>"Your father wanted better for you," Deadpool continued as he looked to the sky and didn't seem to notice as all around him the world seemed to shift.  Blast scars on the ground un-scorched.  Rubble stacked itself back into buildings as holly climbed rebuilt walls.  Grass grew back and burst with flax and cattails.  Smoke was swept clean from the air.  Dandelions bloomed and blasted trees straightened to grow new green leaves.   "Better outcomes, better futures ... "</p><p>All around Deadpool, the world was restored, as if a battle had never had taken place.  The green in his suit burned bright and clear.</p><p>"Well," Deadpool finally seemed to notice them again, "we all see how that turned out."</p><p>The restored world burst into flame.</p><p>   </p>
<hr/><p>   </p><p>Nathan wakes up with a jerk, disoriented and adrift.  <i>It's too quiet.</i>  The abrupt silence dragged him from his coma with a soul deep bolt of alarm.  A sound he didn't realize he was hearing had suddenly stopped and he understands with brutal certainly that it needed to start again.  </p><p>He blinks at the room, the cold white of the ceiling, the machines that beep around him, bone tired and confused ... and then in an instant he was elsewhere, awake and refreshed and <i>even more confused</i>.</p><p>"Dad!" Hope screams from not far away and he turns to her, pleased to see her alive and well, if scuffed and grubby.  Her companions are the worse for wear.</p><p>The Avengers and the X-Men are scattered across the ground, thrown away from whatever they had attacked.  He can feel the grim calculations of their thoughts, the sensation of plans gone horrifically awry, of the worst happening.  Nathan turns to face their fear, "What have you <i>done</i>?"</p><p>Wade spreads his arms and <i>laughs</i> and the air warps, breaking into glass and falling into nothingness.  Starlight burns through him, barely contained in immortal flesh, leaking through the cracks in him.  Green and gold fire burns across his suit.  </p><p>... but Nathan isn't asking <i>Wade</i>. He's asking the ring of <i>total idiots</i> who made his <i>partner</i> into <i>this</i>.  The arrogant imbeciles who obviously thought it was cute to mess with things they didn't understand, who let the terrible red <i>thing</i> trapped inside of Wade out to play.  For what else could they have done?</p><p>Wade's head tilted, and he grinned, a slicing edge that cuts reality asunder, "I've missed you too, Nate."  His voice makes the air scream in the absolute silence that is everything.</p><p>The silence that must end, or they will all end with it.  Nathan knows this, but he can't say how or why.</p><p>"I was asking <i>them</i>."</p><p>Wade's searing attention drifts over their captive audience and they tense, rightfully wary of his sudden predatory interest.  He waves a hand and the after image burns in the air with gold flame.  The greenery all around him was still on fire.   "Uh oh, teacher's got a naughty class!  What have you been doing to the substitute when he's been away, hmm?"</p><p>Xavier was useless if he was just going to huddle on the ground clutching his head in agony.  After the last time, Nathan would have thought he had learned better than to try to get inside Wade's head.  Wade <i>saw</i> things that tore themselves from a man's skull and lived to chatter incoherently about it.  His father answers tightly instead, "That's the Phoenix Force."</p><p>These utter <i>fools</i>.  That did explain the fire.  </p><p>All the light in the world went out.</p><p>There was only darkness, so abrupt and absolute it was a shock to the spirit.  Nathan looked automatically to the sky and only saw the stars, distant pinpricks of light.  The sky was black.  There was no sun.  There was no moon.  The very air felt strangely chill, as if the heat was suddenly leeching away.</p><p>The only light in the world were the ones they had themselves ... and Wade.  </p><p>"Even stars burn out," Wade said with a soothing, twisting smile.</p><p>"Wade," Nathan breathes through pure unfiltered terror.  It's not just his own, but the reverberations of everyone around him who comes to the same conclusion he just did. "Why did you put out the <i>sun</i>?"</p><p>It was <i>so quiet</i>.  A void.  A vacuum.  The sun no longer sings to them.  Nathan had never noticed it, but it was as vital to their lives as the blood beating quietly in their veins.</p><p>This was <i>Death</i>.  She was coming for them.  Nathan can almost see Her leaning on Wade's shoulder, curling Her bones around his waist as the light goes out in him, burning him up from within.</p><p>"The Phoenix wants her money, Nate."</p><p>Horror gripped Nathan's heart even as everything settled into place.  This was simple.  It was easy.  This was a broken transaction, a breach of contract between parties.  Someone was owed and now Wade came to collect.  </p><p>Protests rose from all sides, a chorus of denials and complaints and demands.  Nathan knew that Wade would be unmoved.  Wade's calling was implacable <i>vengeance</i>, in delivering punishment when justice had failed.  </p><p>For all that people demonized Wade, they always seemed to forget just how <i>ruthless</i> he was.  No one double-crossed Wade and lived to tell of it.  <i>No one.</i>  The loss of the sun was a gesture, a show of force and power, collateral and <i>hostage</i>.  They would have their sun back when they gave him what he wanted and not a moment before.  The air grew steadily colder.</p><p>"Then take your price," Nathan said quietly, cutting across the protests of the Avengers.  </p><p>Wade gave a mocking bow, fire spiraling out from him, inscribing curling lines into the ground in an expanding sphere, an eerily beautiful design made by searing the grass from the earth beneath.  Creation and destruction at once, smoke and incense filling the air.  "Why thank you, Nate.  I will."</p><p>"You're supposed to stop him!" Hope yelled, furious, "Not give him permission!"</p><p>"Wade doesn't need our permission," Nathan said flatly, "He put the sun out more than eight minutes ago.  He was just wasting time until you could see it and understand that there was nothing you could do about it."</p><p>"Omae wa mou shindeiru," Logan repeated grimly, "You are already dead."</p><p>"No!  No!  I won't accept it!" Hope snapped, "The Phoenix has been stopped before!  We can stop it again!" It was demand and plea and her tears glittered in the firelight as she held out her hands to him in entreaty.</p><p>Wade laughed, and the air trembled in heat mirage. His smile was a vicious cutting thing, "How do you think you got here in the first place?  You play at being a god, spending my power like water ... and when the time comes to pay ... you kill my vessels and you try to <i>destroy</i> me."  He spread his arms and life began to die, sparks snuffing out one by one in the ever cooling dark. "Well, the joke's on you.  Fire doesn't die, it is only reborn."</p><p>"That's not how it went," Scott said quietly, painfully, "You craved sensation."</p><p>Wade gave him a pitying look, "Women <i>lie</i>.  Jean was a good girl who felt bad things ... so of course it was someone's else's fault.  She was drunk on power and attention and glory ... and not once did she think she owed <i>me</i>, not once did she think she was just another vessel to be consumed as all things are consumed."</p><p>"<i>You'll</i> be consumed," Scott pointed out, "If it consumed her ... it will consume you too."  </p><p>Wade just laughed as Nathan ground out a "Shut up" between gritted teeth.  Nathan didn't need his father encouraging even more immolating behavior when Wade could literally burst into flames. </p><p>"What are you doing?" Xavier gasped from the ground, "I can feel them - they're dying!"</p><p>"Now you join party," Wade hummed conversationally, "I'm killing them."  He snapped his fingers and the fire around him snuffed out in an instant, smoke rising to the sky.  " ... and when enough of you are dead, we'll be even.  Rejoice," He chirped cheerfully, "none of you get to pay with your own lives.  Just the people you vowed to protect and then abandoned in your quest to <i>win</i>, no matter the cost."</p><p>"Why am I here?" Nathan asked, feeling a creeping despair to match the creeping cold that made his breath fog in the air.  He wasn't needed to arbitrate between the Phoenix and the Avengers ... Wade was more than capable of that on his own.</p><p>"Adults don't let children fight their wars for them," Wade said simply.</p><p>Nathan froze as he heard Hope's automatic denial behind him.  Her protest that she wasn't a child.  She wasn't by any measure of adulthood that Nathan cared about ... but she was still so young, and he was her father, and he <i>never</i> wanted her to burn up from within trying to satisfy a cosmic entity. </p><p>... and neither would Wade, who came when Nathan called.  Who had stood at his side and protected Hope when she was helpless and new in the world.  Who had let them go without any expectation that they would ever return.  Who had <i>loved</i> them. </p><p>"If anyone's going to commit mass murder around here, it's going to be <i>me</i>," The golden lamps of Wade's eyes were impossible to read, but the slashing grin that twisted his mask broke Nathan's heart, "and if you think I'm just going to let you just lay around and leave me to keep an eye on this <i>spoiled</i>, <i>selfish</i>, <i>thoughtless</i> hatchling, then you can just – "</p><p>"Shut up, Wade," Nathan cut across the words that were only meant to hurt him as he stepped forward, crossing the distance between them to lay his hands on Wade's shoulders. Wade's head tilted back to meet his eyes. So close and Nathan could make out the details of his skull, the shadow his bones cast on his suit flickering from the flame that lit him from within. </p><p>"How about not on your -- "</p><p>"You don't have to do this," Nathan pressed his forehead to Wade's and closed his eyes against the light and fire that radiated from Wade and yet passed through him without harm.  "It's not your responsibility."</p><p>"It is now," Wade said in the space between them and this time Nathan knew he spoke about the Phoenix, " No one will speak for her, so I speak for her."</p><p>Nathan shuddered as this close he could feel the deaths more sharply and keenly, the snuffing of their sparks loud in the reflected fire, reverberations counting out like grains of sand on a scale.  Wade might be implacable in his duty, measuring that scale as coldly as the jackal headed judge of the underworld ... but ... but the Phoenix was not Wade.  They spoke together, exchanging Wade's voice without any hesitation ... but they were not one.  </p><p>Primal forces could be bargained with.  Their needs were not mortal needs.  They could be offered trades.  They could be placated by offerings, by devotion, by worship.  Surely there was still <i>something</i> he could offer to temper fire's demand.  </p><p>"If she wants payment ... if she wants a temple, I will make her one," Nathan said quietly, "That's what gods like, yes?  Burnt offerings?  I will offer them morning and night in exchange for their lives."</p><p>Wade tilted his head, the light in his eyes sparking before dimming as his eyelids drooped low, "We do like presents."  He smiled a bright smile filled with malice and razors, "<i>Worship me.</i>"</p><p>Relieved to find an angle, any angle they could use, Nathan dropped to one knee, his fist thumping against his chest over his heart, head bent before the apparition of fire.  "I live to serve."</p><p>"Our faithful servant, you always have been and will be, Askani'son," Fingertips traced his cheek, fire snaking across his skin.  So she knew, then, what Wade knew.  That in the future, the Phoenix was a power held in reverent esteem.  "We grant faithful servants our boon." Wade crooned as the air around him sparked with cinders, the golden glow rising to a conflagration --</p><p>-- that abruptly snuffed out as red shot through the suit in a sudden surge of bloody color, tearing through the green.  "The fuck you will."</p><p>Nathan blinked in surprise, lifting his head as the hand left his cheek.  Wings of fire exploded from Wade as the Phoenix leapt for the sky.  Quick as thought, Wade tore the escaping flame from the air to hold it tightly in a vice red grip.  Power screamed in rage, shattering the sky.  </p><p>Savage, searing heat washed across Nathan's shield, eating away at it, as a molten star ignited in Wade's hand.  Wade clenched his fist and the Phoenix <i>wailed</i>, the scream wheezing into a whine.    </p><p>Wade waved his free hand, languid and casual, fire blurring the motion in the air, and the whole world was loud with sound again, the song of Sol burning in the heavens, alive once more at Wade's command.</p><p>Nathan sagged in relief as the heat faded, "Welcome back, Wade."</p><p>"What did I say about throwing yourself on grenades?" Wade snapped waspishly as the captured star in his fist dimmed to ruddy embers, the whine of the Phoenix suffocated. </p><p>"Not to do it?" Nathan asked cautiously, his gaze caught by Wade dusting his hands off, casting away fading sparks.  He looked up into eyes that were only pale, strangely cold without the flame to turn them gold, and quite purposefully fluttered his eyelashes.  </p><p>Wade pointed at him, "You -- you -- " Fire flickered weakly along the edge of broad shoulders, mere wisps still attempting to escape.  Wade rolled his shoulders and the flames snuffed out.  </p><p>Nathan stood slowly for the sake of his knees.  "You know I would do whatever it takes to save the world."</p><p>"Well, quit it!" Wade stabbed his finger into Nathan's chest, "I will not have it!"</p><p>"I see that," Nathan murmured with quiet awe.</p><p>"Oh my primus, all these feelings are going to make me puke," Wade complained.</p><p>"I love you too, Wade," Nathan smiled a truly happy smile that made Wade squirm.  </p><p>"You're going to give me a rash with all your mushy shit."  Wade pulled at the suit on his arm, "Look at this!  Hives!  Right here!"</p><p>"They'll heal," Nathan chuckled, rubbing the top of Wade's masked head and rejoicing as he squawked in outrage.  Wade punched him in the metal shoulder with a huff and Nathan only looped an arm around him and hugged him close, pressing a rough kiss to the side of his head.  "Have you met my daughter?"</p><p>"I hate to tell you this, Nate, but she's a suicidal twit," Wade sighed against his side, shifting to lean against him, an arm looping around his waist and hooking fingers in the pocket on the other side.</p><p>Hope yowled in indignation, "Oh my god!  I'm not!"</p><p>Nathan snorted a laugh, amusement and relief taking any sting out of Wade's observation, "She'll grow out of it."</p><p>"They never grow out of it," Wade grumbled, "they just justify it by saying they're saving the world."</p><p>   </p>
<hr/><p>   </p><p>Wade has been the vessel of Death.  He has held the endless black of space, the void of death.  Wade has been the avatar of Eternity.  He has held infinite stars, the ignition of life itself.  Wade has seen what should not be seen, heard what should not be heard, spoken what should not be spoken.  He has been white space and black lines, sequencing without end.  </p><p>A mere <i>fire spirit</i> will never hold sway in his soul.  </p><p>So sleep, fire spirit, and be reborn at the end of all things ... <i>or until I have need of you again.</i></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>
  <b>References: </b>
</p><p>I just want to remind the class that the Avengers watched a bunch of futures to pick the one that would end up with them defeating Scott and Emma.  They CHOSE the one that ended up with Xavier dead.  Think about that.  D:</p><p>The <i>Star Wars</i> reference is obvious.</p><p>"Omae wa mou shindeiru" means "You are already dead" and is a reference to <i>First of the North Star</i>, where the hero will tell someone they are already dead and afterwards they erupt into gore.  Non-English occurs in [] instead of "", with the exception where the Non-English is itself the reference.</p><p>It takes light 8 minutes and 20 seconds to reach the Earth from the Sun.  </p><p>In the language of flowers, Oleander means "caution", Begonia means "beware", and grass means "submission".  </p><p>Holly mean "defense, domestic happiness", flax is a domestic symbol, Dandelions are "faithfulness, happiness" and cattails are "peace, prosperity".</p><p>
  <b>Other: </b>
</p><p>In the <i>1998 Deadpool Annual</i> there is a scene where Wade is dying and he functionally brushes off Death so he can get vengeance on Francis.  "Your will for vengeance has kick-started the healing factor -- You must give up, or you will live!" is an exact quote.  This is interesting, though, because Wade <i>decided</i> not to die and that was apparently the end of it, LOL. </p><p>Then along comes <i>Deadpool vs. Thanos</i> and Deadpool will channel Death (to fight Eternity) and Eternity (to fight Death).</p><p> … and I started to think about how the Phoenix Force is both of those things at once.  She's literally shown as a phoenix, a mythical creature which dies and resurrects.  Why would random telepaths make better homes for this abstract cosmic power if you have Deadpool just lying around?  A person who literally dies and lives again?  A person who has channeled abstract cosmic entities already?  Isn't Wade a much better vessel?  XD</p><p>Combine that with how he keeps giving Death the finger despite professing to want to stay with her … and Wade becomes a perfect vessel that is also a <i>trap</i>.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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